Recently I was involved in a project which required me to connect to 2 servers at the client location using SSH; which is fun and dandy but the trouble rises when I have to (being the laziest person I know) enter the password every-time i want to access the server.

So I wanted some way where I didn’t have to enter the password every-time I connect.

I did a lot of research and finally found a simple solution.

I needed to install a program called sshpass it allows us to pass the password to the ssh program.

so the command now becomes

sshpass ‘<password>’ ssh myId@someIP

don’t forget to use the single quotes to enclose the password.

This way I could put this line in a .sh file and call it every-time I needed to connect, needless to say, its my responsibility to keep the file away from unauthorized access.

I recently bought an MBlaze internet card from MTS India, and tried to use it with Ubuntu 12.10 despite the numerous how-to articles on the internet I was unable to connect to the internet.

Then I decided to call MTS Customer Service, I spoke to one Praveen who basically said they only support windows and will not support any other OS (although the accompanying hand book clearly states that MTS supports Windows, Linux and Mac) and its my responsibility as a buyer to configure it, also a support call would take 20 working hrs (approx 3 days) to get back to me. (one of the most horrible customer service agent I have spoken to thus far).

Now, the reason I’m writing this blog post is to help people who are looking to use the MTS dongle with Ubuntu.

First off, when you plugin the card for the first time Ubuntu will detect the device as a ZTE USB modem.

Following are the configuration settings you need to make

1. Go to Network Connection -> Mobile Broadband

2. Click Add and go through the regular setup process.

once done you will see a window something like this.

The configuration isn’t complete still, we need to edit this and allow the dongle to connect to the internet.

When you click on edit button you should see a window similar to this.

Now comes the setting changes

in the last tab (PPP Settings) you need to only enable “PAP, MSCHAPv2” as the authentication methods, by default all the methods are selected.

next, unselect the data data and header compression check boxes, now the window should look like this

Once this setting is completed you can connect to the internet.

if this is the first time you are trying to connect to internet with the card you need to activate the card, else the network will keep disconnecting the card. for this you would require the plugin the card to a windows machine and activate it using the accompanying software.

After a long and hard search, I finally figured out a way to pass parameters to JVM in Mule ESB. Thought of sharing this for the next restless soul trying to develop things in Mule.

Lets start with a simple introduction of mule, Mule is an ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) meaning it helps connect different components which don’t ordinarily speak the same language and are very difficult to adjust/reprogram.

Whenever we deal with Java and its related products, we often end-up fidgeting with the amount of memory which needs to be allocated to the VM.

Mule being different as it it, has a very different way of passing arguments to the underlying VM. It uses a configuration file found in $MULE_HOME/conf/wrapper.conf

this file contains keys matching the pattern

wrapper.java.additional.<n>

replace the <n> with an integer (ensure to not skip a number in the sequence), the default mule installation comes with 3 configurations, so its safe to start with wrapper.java.additional.4

I have been searching the internet for many months now to try and factory reset my Mercury MTAB 701.

The option available in Privacy-> Factory Data Reset Doesn’t work at all in this device.

Like many cheap android devices in the market, this device is a re-branded Chinese made Telechips 8xxx model.

The trouble I faced is two fold.

1. Reset the device

2. Backup and Upgrade the Stock ROM

To reset the device you need to do the following.

while starting the device

Hold down the Power-Key (Last button in the Right Side panel) and the Menu Key (Middle-Left on the Front Panel).

Holding these keys immediately after you see the device beginning to start will sometimes result in a blank screen being displayed, a few seconds later you will see the android logo and the device just waits. Now you need to press the power button once, then the volume up down keys a couple of times, this will show you the menu which allows you to update the Stock ROM or Factory Reset the device.